Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS), and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.[2]

She has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and helped renew interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, an album also credited with raising American interest in bluegrass, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.

As of 2018, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, making her the most awarded living recipient, second only to classical conductor Georg Solti, who holds the record for most wins with 31.[3] She is the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history.[4]

At the time of her first, the 1991 Grammy Awards, she was the second-youngest winner (currently tied as the ninth-youngest).

Early life

Alison Maria Krauss[5] was born in Decatur, Illinois,[6] to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 and taught his native language. Her mother, of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists. Krauss grew up in the college town of Champaign, home to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[7] She began studying classical violin at age five but soon switched to bluegrass. Krauss said she first became involved with music because "[my] mother tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports".[8] At the age of eight she started entering local talent contests, and at ten had her own band. At 13 she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship,[9] and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest".[10] She was also called "Virtuoso" by Vanity Fair Magazine.[11]

Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.[12]

1985-1991: Early career

Krauss made her recording debut in 1985 on the independent album, Different Strokes, featuring her brother Viktor Krauss, Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing their previous fiddler Andrea Zonn.[13] Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.[14] Pennell remains one of her favorite songwriters[15] and wrote some of her early work including the popular "Every Time You Say Goodbye".

Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.[16]

Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways.[17] The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of The Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".

Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.

So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass."[25] Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer[26] and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.

Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart.

In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.[27]

2000-present: Current career

Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned Dobro player Jerry Douglas.[28] Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double albumLive in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in Eight Crazy Nights.

Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded.[29] Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand.[8] She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.

Returning with Union Station, Krauss released a new album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011,[2][32] the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that it took a lot of time to do the album because of Krauss' non-stop migraines[33][34]

Other work

Krauss on stage with Robert Plant at Birmingham, England's NIA on May 5, 2008

Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles.[40] In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan.

Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose." She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character.[41] The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002.[42] Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited[43] with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music.[44] She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.[45]

Reception and influences

Krauss performing live

Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals[17] with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company.[54][55][56] Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends, who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO.[57] She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States.[43] Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning."[44] Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.[45]

As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters",[58] and "the tightest band around."[59] While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus"[60] with an "angelic"[59] voice that "flows like honey".[60] Her work has been compared to that of The Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury,[] and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums.[61] In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson.[62]Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road".[63] and Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM".[64] In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".[65]

Voice, themes, and musical style

Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".[59][66]

Krauss at 2011 IBMAs

She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice.[67] Many of her songs are described as sad,[68] and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood.[45][69] She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish[17] and Sting,[50] and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.[13][70]

Music videos

Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has gone on to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions up to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos bandmembers have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many - including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" - follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.[12][71]

Performances

Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.[72]

At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4 inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody, who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Tr?o 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.[99][100]